512 
wHcli are in the Survey Museum awaiting the advent of somebody who can throw light 
upon their origin. The surface of the sandstone, which is in thin flags, is marked by a 
network of raised lines crossing one another at all angles. These lines are probably due 
to the filling up, with fine sand, of cracks produced by sun-drying, the subsequent 
shrinking of the rock on consolidation having left the lines standing in relief. Each 
square, or rectangle, or trapezoid, encloses a scroll in high relief, the outer end of which 
generally springs from one of the straight lines. The scrolls somewhat resemble the 
circinate vernation of the fronds of ferns, but the resemblance is evidently a mere fancy- 
My Colleague believes that the scrolls are not even of organic origin, and they form an 
unsolved puzzle which weighs on my mind. At this place the Desert Sandstone rises to 
a height of about one hundred feet above the level of the railway. The highest beds are 
of red sandstone. These rest on yellow sandstones, which overlie shales or mudstones, 
with bands of clay-band ironstone nodules. It is gn the yellow sandstones that the 
circinate markings occur. The same beds also contained tracks and burrows, and 
questionable plant-remains, including fragments of silicified wood. 
The railway line furnishes a convenient datum from which the altitude of the 
base of the Desert Sandstone can be ascertained. So far as the railway traverses the 
district of Marauoa — i.e., from Yeulba (281 miles) to Dulbydilla (410 miles) — it rises 
with a gentle grade from 1)86 feet to 1,443 feet above the sea-level, or about six 
feet in a mile. The bases of the Desert Sandstone fragments seen from the railway 
probably average about twenty feet above the level of the rails. In other words, the 
present denuded surface is only a little below that on which the Desert Sandstone was 
laid down. The base of the Desert Sandstone may be taken to rise from 1,006 feet at 
Yeulba to 1,463 feet at Dulbydilla. 
Over the whole Maranoa District the Desert Sandstone rests horizontally, and 
with a distinct unconformability, on the Eolling Downs strata, which dip to the south, and 
from which the Wollumbilla fossils discovered by Mr. Gordon and described by the 
Eev. "VY. B. Clarke in 1867,* and by Mr. Charles Moore t in 1869, the fossils described 
by the latter gentleman from the Ainby Eiver, Mount Abundance Eun, Blythesdale, and 
BungeworgoraijJ and the fossils from the Mitchell Eiver, and Eoma, collected by me in 
1885, and described by my Colleague in the following pages, were collected. 
My journey to the west in 1885 led me from the then terminus of the railway 
(Dulbydilla) to the present terminus at Charleville by coach. Erom Dulbydilla to 
Morven (nineteen miles), the soil is red and sandy, and is evidently derived from the 
decomposition of the Desert Sandstone, although the latter is probably in situ only on 
the very divide. An outlying table of Desert Sandstone is seen on the north side of 
the road. Erom Morven to Thurles (fifteen miles), the soil is reddish, but gradually 
grows greyer to the west. At Thurles (1,250 feet), the surface is strewn with pebbles 
of red sandstone and red ironstone, derived from the decomposition of the Desert Sand- 
stone. A Desert Sandstone tableland lies north of the road between Hamburgh and 
Angellalla Creeks. A large tableland, known as the Angellalla Eange, lies between 
Angellalla and Bradley’s Creeks. Its base is 1,360 feet, and its summit 1,485 feet above 
the sea-level. The upper beds are coarse and gritty with quartz pebbles ; the lower 
beds are hard, white, fine-grained and felspathic, with a conohoidal fracture. 
From the Angellalla Tableland to Charleville only the “ Eolling Downs” strata 
are met with. The level of Charleville by the railway survey is nine hundred and 
sixty-six feet. When Mr. J. B. Henderson, Hydraulic Engineer, and I travelled 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 18C7, xxiii., ix 7. 
t L<jc. cU., 1870, xxvi., p. 220. 
J Loc. ciL, p. 2^. 
